Computer Security Issues at VT

Date: 09/30/2009

Time: 7:00 PM

Location: Torg 3100

Abstract

This talk discusses past attacks and security issues at VA Tech. Since 1984, the VT network has been the target of hacker probes and attacks. Newer attacks include social networks and phish attacks. Demos of some of the attacks will be shown.

Bio:

Randy Marchany has been involved in the computer industry since 1972. He is currently the director of the VA Tech Security Testing Lab, a component of the university's IT Security Office. He is the author of the VA Tech Acceptable Use guidelines. He is a co-author of the FBI/SANS Institute's "Top 10/20 Internet Security Vulnerabilities" document. He is the co-author of the "Responding to Distributed Denial of Service Attacks" document that was prepared at the request of the White House in response to the DDOS attacks of 2000. He is a coauthor of the Center for Internet Security's series of Security Benchmark documents for Solaris, AIX and Windows2000. These benchmarks are available for free and represent the first successful attempt to create a set of consensus documents with detailed steps for implementing system security.

He was a member of the White HousePartnership for Critical Infrastructure Security working group that developed a Consensus Roadmap for responding to the recent series of DDOS Internet Attacks. He was a recipient of the SANS Institute's Security Technology Leadership Award for 2000. He was a recipient of the VA Governor's Technology Silver Award in 2003. He was part of the team that won the EDUCAUSE Excellence in Information Technology Solutions in 2005. He is a co-holder of a patent for battery based intrusion detection system that was the product of research conducted in the VA Tech IT Security Lab.